Today, an increasing number of short-range wireless transceiver devices (e.g., femtocell and picocell devices), operating on licensed frequency spectra, are being deployed within larger wireless networks to improve the quality of wireless communications at various subscriber site locations. Often, network transceiver devices are configured to connect with a particular service provider network using various common wireline communications technologies, including, but not limited to: fiber optic, DSL, powerline, and/or coaxial cable. These transceiver devices may be distributed in such a way to provide short-range wireless communications services to single-family homes, public businesses (e.g., such as Starbucks® coffee shops or McDonalds® restaurants), to particular floors within an office building, etc.
Modern wireless network infrastructures can be improved by reducing the network traffic or loads experienced by wide coverage area base stations (e.g., macrocell and microcell base stations) residing within heavily populated regions of a data communications network (e.g., in most metropolitan areas). With the present-day evolution of wireless communications networks, this can be achieved by deploying large numbers of short-range wireless transceiver devices (e.g., femtocell and/or picocell devices) that can collectively pull significant amounts of traffic (e.g., residential traffic) away from heavily loaded network base stations. This traffic distribution phenomenon can be particularly beneficial during peak periods of network use where wide-area service provider resources (e.g., bandwidth provided by a macrocell base station) may be significantly burdened.
Expanding a network's resources to include short-range wireless alternatives in highly populated areas can significantly reduce periods of network congestion between various links in a larger data communications network. This can improve a service provider network's Quality of Service (QOS) as well as network service subscribers' collective Quality of Experience (QOE) within a particular portion of a data communications network. Negative effects associated with poor QOS and poor QOE (e.g., conditions largely caused by congestion and/or interference), which can be mitigated by adding a substantial amount of short-range wireless transceiver devices to network infrastructure, may include: queuing delay, data loss, as well as blocking of new and existing network connections for certain network subscribers.
Most self-contained, short-range transceiver device networks (e.g., femtocell and/or picocell networks) reside residentially within larger wireless networks that include a variety of network base station types (e.g., macrocell, microcell, and optionally picocell base stations) operating on the same or similar licensed frequency spectra. This heterogeneous communications network topology can facilitate the substitution of local transceiver device service for communications services formerly provided by larger area network base stations within user-selected regions of a service provider network. For example, when a user equipment, such as a cellular phone or a PDA device, is within range of a local femtocell transceiver device, the user equipment may selectively or automatically be configured to transition from a serving macrocell base station to the local femtocell device, such that their network service seamlessly transitions to a local, dedicated service option that typically offers better communications capability than the macrocell base station within a very limited coverage area.
Although adding a variety of short-range wireless communications transceivers to an existing network can improve network throughput in most metropolitan areas, the unplanned placement of these short-range transceiver devices (e.g., femtocell and/or picocell devices) within a given network topology can also have detrimental effects on wireless communications quality within a service provider network. In particular, joining or relocating transportable transceiver devices to the network may inadvertently cause interference amongst the transportable transceiver devices, neighboring base stations, and various user equipment of a wireless network based on existing deployments of network base stations (e.g., macrocell and/or microcell base stations).
Accordingly, without careful frequency and/or radio power level planning within particular regions of a data communications network, both short-range transceiver device and wide-range base station communications could suffer from detrimental interference scenarios. In some problematic scenarios, the interference may be associated with co-channel interference and in other scenarios the interference may be associated with adjacent channel interference. Typically, it is not possible for service providers to keep track of, or even properly plan for, the addition and/or relocation of hundreds or even thousands of transportable short-range transceiver devices residing within portions of a larger data communications network.
Next generation cellular networks (e.g., 4G communications networks) may be able to take advantage of system redundancy associated with heterogeneous mixtures of short-range wireless transceiver devices collocated with wider-range network base stations. These new deployment topologies may result in robust mixtures of network cell coverage within regions of overlapping wireless service. In particular, many modern, low power transceiver devices (e.g., femtocell Home eNodeB devices) are readily transportable within a communications network by end users. This mobility creates the possibility that short-range transceiver devices may be moved to unpredictable locations where their operation could potentially produce substantial interference to surrounding network infrastructure, unless their maximum radio power levels were constrained to reduce unwanted instances of network interference.
Presently, there is a need for improved systems and methods that facilitate ad-hoc deployments of short-range wireless transceiver devices within larger wireless communications networks. It would be beneficial if these deployments could occur while ensuring that the operation of transportable transceiver devices will not interfere with or significantly degrade existing, overlapping network infrastructure (e.g., including static macrocell, microcell, and/or picocell base stations). To date, it has been very difficult for service providers to restrict portable transceiver devices to particular geographic locations (e.g., to lock a transceiver device to a subscriber's residence or place of business). Accordingly, it would also be desirable if these improved systems and methods could be managed by subscriber-deployed equipment (e.g., by transceiver devices that service providers deploy to their network subscribers). This distribution would advantageously affect quality optimization processes amongst a wireless network's resources, such that a particular service provider entity would not need to be independently responsible for impractical resource planning and management tasks, created by unexpected customer relocation and operation of short-range network communications equipment.